Wild ideas

An assortment and sampling of the ideas that run through my head:

• Cashmere goats. They are so much less work than dairy goats. I can't drink the milk anyway. Also, Cashmeres have no breed registry in the U.S., as they are not technically a breed, so the field is A. wide open and B. probably freer of the petty snobbery which is so rife in the dairy goat world and C. a good opportunity for developing my own breed standards and priorities , as opposed to doggedly following those which are laid out in the ADGA handbook.  I think the thing to do would be to buy a few does from imported (NZ) bloodlines and then use (also imported) semen to A.I. them. Why imported? Because, I've done some homework into this subject and am so far unimpressed by the quality of American stock. Most American stock is strongly influenced by Spanish, Boer, or Pygmy strains, because people want dual purpose (meat and fiber) animals as opposed to just high qaulity fiber, which is what I want. 
• Or, how about this: Cashmere dairy goats. In other words, fiber goats that also produce milk. Why not have one fiber and one dairy goat? Well, for one thing, non dairy breeds typically have much higher butterfat and protein percentages than dairy goats. Also, most people don't need gallons and gallons of milk per day, unless they're raising calves or pigs or are making cheese. They just want a little high quality milk, thus the popularity of the Nigerian Dwarf, a breed that makes my back ache when I think of working with them (they are tiny...and though I am short, I don't want animals I have to bend over to work with).  So...with this plan, get  a few nice very high quality dairy goats and A.I. them with imported Cashmere semen, and cross the lines, breed the F1s to more Cashmere semen, evaluate and cull, until a goat with nice fiber and decent milk production (1-2 quarts a day would be fine) is obtained. 
• Spotted knapweed. Why in the hell doesn't Monsanto genetically engineer a strain of spotted knapweed which has the Terminator technology? Areas with knapweed problems could then sow (yes, plant) this improved knapweed and it would cross with the existing (non-native invasive noxious weed) strains and when the two pollinated, the seed would all be sterile. Thus, over a series of years, no viable seed would be left, voila, no more knapweed. I think it must be because Monsanta would rather posion the country with 2,4D, round-up, and other poisons. Temporary and not-entirely effective solutions are a better money maker. 
• Pinus edulis and Pinus monophylla are two extremely slow growing trees which both produce delicious and edible seeds. I ordered some from this site and they are delicious. I decided I'd like to grow some of these wonderful trees. Well, guess what. It can take 60 years for them to reach 6 feet in height! In other words, mature productive trees are ancient and venerable. Now get this: aside from pine nuts, the other major uses for these two species are Christmas tree, timber (including rialroad ties) and pulp! Yeah, like paper pulp, something which could easily be produced with hemp (not the THC kind), or even better, recycled paper. But noooo....they have to cut down a beautiful pinon pine that took 300 years to grow so that people can have soft cushy toilet paper, even though that tree can make *food* year after year. Idiotic. Worse, the Xmas trees! The trees take a hundred years to attain the right height for Xmas trees, so yeah, whack'em down so that some spoiled family can have a nice tree for what, all of a month? Grrrrr...... I probably sound draconian, but this ought to be illegal. 
• Therefore, I have yet another idea. There are many species of trees, including a pine, which can be coppiced. Coppicing means that when you ct down a tree, it regrows from the sump, usually several shoots, and they grow a lot faster than the first growth, because they've got a mature and extensive root system feeding them. You can then cut down one of the second growths, and the other tops will be bigger, and you can continue to harvest them this way for centuries without ever killing the tree. I think this should be the only (or at least the primary) source of timber and cellulose. 

At school everyone calls me by my actual name. At first this felt really weird. Now it seems strange to be called Rebekah. Actually, the long form of my name feels excessively formal. Not sure I like that but don't quite know what to do about it. 

The sysbot test was today. I studied all three days of the weekend, even went on a field trip to see the trees in more detail and in different situations, etc, to get a solid feel for the big picture...studied notes, rewrote them and was quizzed, and read and reread the flora (Hitchcock's Flora of the Pacific Northwest). It seemed a little like overkill, but I had a feeling that the test would be challenging. Ah. It was. I am soooo glad I studied. I know I got several questions wrong, but it would have been quite the nightmare had I not gone all out. And next time, I will study even harder. The class is *fun*, but it is not  a cake walk. I can't gripe, though. Fact of the matter is that since I love the subject, studying for it is no pain at all. 

Next week: Math test. I think I am finally catching up on the math. 

Socially, am making more acquaintances. I am still not very good at small talk, despite a conscious effort in this direction. I don't have a lot of small things to talk about. For me, nearly any subject can lead into more depth or perspective or tangents, and people don't seem to like that. A lot of them want the small talk comments to be short little sound bites, but then what do you say? Another little sound bite? How do you know when to switch from one trivial topic to another? People get bored so easily. They have no attention span. 

Finally figured out how to post images. Hmmm. Also just noticed that blogger has a lot more options easily accesible than when I started this blog. I used to use html for everything from bulleted lists to italics (still do, actually), but it appears I don't really have to anymore...not that's it's been any great effort to use html. 

At any rate, the two pictures below are of some of my art from 2007; an artichoke and a cherry turnover. I'll have to ferret out some more and post that too. The orchids are blooming wildly and tempting me to take an hour or two to draw them...but, I have to finish my Pseudotsuga menziesii page in my botany notebook. I drew only half of the pinecone. This isn't making much sense. I suppose I'll have to post a page from that notebook in order to articulate what I mean. 

Oh, and I saw a male black-backed woodpecker while XX skiing yesterday! Also, a single Taxus brevifolia, Acer glabrum and a lot of diverse pseudotsuga (and other trees) under different conditions, which highlighted how variable the trees can look depending on their situation. Phenotypes and all that jazz. 

Strange Ruminations

I haven't had goats for a couple of years now, and it's been longer than that since I've shown them or had an active breeding program. At one time, I had aspired to be a dairy goat judge, not for the power or control or prestige, but because I really enjoyed evaluating the animals. The late great Harvey Considine, who I had the incredible honor of meeting and chatting with, thought I had a good eye for the work. He told me something I found funny at the time, that his father (I think?) who was also in livestock (although not dairy goats) had a habit or looking at people's feet, at the way they walked. Oddly enough, this habit has become mine. I think I pay more attention to human feet and general movement "on the move" (good dairy goat judges judge the animals while walking slowly, not when primped and posed artificially) than I do their faces.

Harvey was right...you can tell and learn a lot by watching people move and walk, and by observing their shoes and feet. Very obese people, for example, tend to have lower legs that splay out at the knees. I haven't decided yet whether this is because they need extra stability for the added mass, or if the added mass of the thighs forces the lower legs (and therefore the feet as well) outward. Watching them walk is painful...you know that their knees must hurt, and that the more those knees hurt, the less they'll want to move around and exercise, creating a vicious cycle. Very musclular men who work out a lot move their upper bodies differently and with less mobility than leaner men do, as though constrained. High heels tend to predispose women to take a sort of stomping, stabbing motion with their walk, which makes their rear ends more noticable, but in my opinion, deprives them of a certain grace and flow, too. I've also noticed that people (usually men) who take what seem to be carefully measured, precise, and intentional steps tend to be pretty methodical and well, precise. People with flat feet stand very differently than others, with their toes pointed out and an entirely different stance.

So I suppose it was only a matter of time before I noticed my own walk. It's my right foot/leg, the side that's shorter, the side whose hip bothers me more. That hip swings out at a different angle than the other one. It has more limited range of motion in some directions, but in a normal walk, I can feel it moving differently, swinging out farther. Since there's snow, I watch my prints. They're not symmetrical. That right foot hits the ground at a different angle, and the hip joint moves as it hits the ground, as I put weight on that foot. It's a decidedly disagreeable sensation even though it doesn't hurt most of the time. I guess that at this point, I could throw myself a little pity party because I'd like to run and romp and climb and jump like I used to and now these activites are very limited (and I pay for them later), but that seems pretty trite. What I'm concerned about is the possibility that whatever's making my hip joint move in this funky way is going to *really* limit my mobility later on. if I believed in a god, I would scream to him that I need to be able to enjoy *something* in life, and I don't want to live in a little cubicle, dammit. I need to breathe the fresh air and feel close to the trees and melt into the outdoors. I want to be climbing trees when I'm 70 or 80 years old.

Screw it. Forget god. I don't care if I lose both my legs, I'm not giving that up. I lost the goats, I've lost so much else...I am not losing the entire outdoors, too. Ugh, I'm ridiculous, who said I was going to lose my legs, anyway??

Maybe there isn't such a disparity bewteen botany and art. Many botanical books have extremely detailed, meticulous botanical art, not photographs, or art and photographs. Also, I think drawing plants (or anything else for that matter) is the best way to really know it. once you draw something, it's like it becomes a part of you, and in turn, a part of you has been invested in that drawing.

Ha, that's really funny. I have 444 posts (not counting this one). That's so perfect that it's tempting to quit posting. 4 is my favorite number.

More detritus from my mind:

I kept smelling something incredibly seductive and couldn't trace it as I am pretty much alone. I finally figured it out- the scent of trees and forest on my hands. Yeah, that's right, trees. On my own hands. I am so weird!!

Today I saw: coyote, weasel, and rabbit tracks, Pinus ponderosa, monticola and contorta, Abies grandis, Thuja plicata, Tsuga heterophylla, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Mahonia repens (I think it is repens), Larix occidentalis, Oplopanax horridus, Acer glabrum, and of course the usual verbascum, etc... The weasel tracks came from and went to small holes in the crust of the snow; apparently weasels tunnel underneath the snow crust, which is pretty cool. There were almost no birds, although I saw plenty of evidence of bird activity.

And I'm finding myself more interested than I ever thought I would be in conifers. I wish that I had acerage to grow, side by side, all the Abies, Picea, Pinus, etc species (each genus in groups, I mean). The cones are incredibly interesting and appealing. Before, they were squirrel food and fire starter. I would never have imagined that I could get enthused about the same trees I've been living near, splitting into firewood, playing under, working with, climbing....well, maybe. Maybe I was this way all along and didn't realize it. I think though, that there's a tendency to romanticize about non-native species of plants while failing to appreciate what we have growing in abundance and splendor all around us.

And I still can't decide if I'd rather be a dcotor or a botanist, or what sort of botanist I'd be. In spite of myself, I still yearn to paint the pinecones, the verbascum, the patterns of the twigs. I wish with all my heart that I could make a living that way, and I know better.

Nononononononononononononononono. No.

That is all. Never mind, move along.

(nonono)

Wild vs Domesticated- goat conformation

The comparison between wild and well bred domesticated animals (or plants or anything else that can be bred, for that matter) is interesting because humans typically set about enacting a breeding program on the premises of improving upon nature. There's more than a little hubris involved in imagining that humans can implement vast improvements, in a few years, over what nature has cruelly, ruthlessly, relentlessly done for millenia. Granted, humans have been working on goats for a long time, since 9,000 BC, but wild goats continued to exist and evolve at the same time, so nature still has the upper hand.

I first began to have doubts about human improvements on wild/native species when some Canada geese flew in near a pair of Toulouse geese I was keeping. The contrast was striking: The wild geese were streamlined, elegant, beautiful, and self sufficient while the Toulouse geese looked dumpy and absurd beside them. Wild animals are often smaller than their tame counterparts (unless humans think that mini versions of the species are cute), and in farm animals, this is said to be more efficient. I bought into this line of thinking for a long time (literally), but it's hard to avoid drawing the unflattering parallel between wild/tame animals and Hummers or SUVs and highly efficient little cars. I'm not certain that bigger is better; it can be a decided disadvantage. Bigger animals take longer to attain their mature size, which means that their total reproductive output will probably be less, or that they risk dying if impregnated during the same time frame in which the wild types would be impregnated. It takes more food and more investment from the mother (in utero and while nursing the offspring) to feed a huge offspring than it does a smaller one, while compounding the risk of birthing difficulties. It is far less risky and more advantageous for the dam to have two smaller offspring than one big one. If one should die for some reason, she won't have lost all of her reproductive investment for that year.

This is one area where I think domestic goat breeders are off the mark. Many respectable, highly esteemed breeders do not breed their doelings to kid at a year old. They wait, holding a dry yearling over the winter, and breed her when she is 1.5 years old, to kid as a yearling. The dry yearlings tend to get fat and to deposit the fat around their internal organs, causing reproductive problems, and if they happen to escape impregnantion during their second fall, they are unlikely to be fertile for the third fall- too fat. The line of reasoning behind this practice is that the doelings are full grown yet and need to mature fully before being bred. My experience has been that if the doelings are adequately fed and protected somewhat from aggression by older does, they do well, kid without complications, and continue to grow. As for size, I hate to wear out the goat-car analogy, but it's true: efficiency is better than brute size. I have seen very large milkers that gave less than 4-5 lbs per day, and smaller does half their size that were producing 6-8 lbs per day as yearlings. The main difference between the two was that the efficient does put their feed into maintenence (which was minimal) and output (which was good thanks to the efficiency), whereas the bigger does had a lot more maintenence and didn't always put that extra food they ate into the milking pail (in the form of milk, I mean). I have seen occasional examples of does that were huge and milked extremely well, but I've seen more that laid their extra food onto their ribs in the form of fat. Let's not get into the nasty, gory sagas of assisting the birth of a 13-14 # kid. Size definitely has its downside.

Feet: This is an area where dairy goats really suffer. Breeders tend to overlook the feet, but if you have 200# of animal being supported by four little goat hooves....it's a real recipe for trouble, especially when you add the extra weight of milk production, pregnancy, and food. Wild goats don't have this problem. If their feet break down, they don't last long and probably won't reproduce much.

Hardiness and mothering: these are traits which are being actively bred out by breeders, particularly with the advent of the CAEV virus.

Body proportions: Wild goats have a midsection which is proportionate to the rest of the body. Very well bred dairy goats do not. The ideal dairy goat will have a large, deep, well sprung barrel so that she looks as though she is pregnant all the time. Her back, from withers to hips, should be long. All the bones in her body should be long. I have come to prefer this ideal myself, but I wonder whether supporting the weight of a huge, deep belly takes a toll on the longer backs, and of course, how it all relates to the feet.

Shoulders, or the "uphill look": Well bred dairy goats are supposed to be noticably higher in the shoulders, or withers, than the hips. Deer and antelopes are higher in the hips. Some species of wild goats are slightly higher in the hips or level from withers to hips, while a few, including the mountain goat (which is actually an entirely different genus and not really a goat) are higher at the shoulders. It is very hard to acheive the ideal combination of high, tightly connected shoulders (you're not supposed to be able to see the tops of the shoulder blades move when the animal walks) *and* chest width. The rationale behind the uphill look is that the reproductive organs will drain better after birthing. I am calling B.S. on this unless someone can provide me with proof to the contrary. Deer have no trouble draining, and their rumps are quite a bit higher than their shoulders.

Udders: I wrote about foreudders a long time ago here. To recap it all briefly, I'm not sure that a "glued on" (very, very tightly attached) udder is ideal. When the kids butt it to nurse, it can't swing out of the way, so is more likely to get bruised and to develop mastitis. This seems to be more of a problem with close, tight foreudders. I do think that strong rear udders are advantageous as they provide most of the support in the udder suspension system that holds up the weight of all that milk. Which brings me to my last point....

Milk production: Is it really such a hot idea to breed to extreme production? To breed for goats that produce so much milk that they're at risk of developing hypocalcemia? Who milk so heavily that they cannnot consume enough food to replace what they're producing, so that they become thin and emaciated by midsummer?

I'm beginning to think that math can be fun, like a sudoku puzzle (with more variety). The only thing is, you don't get graded on sudoku puzzles, and in sudoku, there is sometimes more than one correct solution, whereas in math, there generally is not.

SysBot is going to be a blast! Lots of fun work.

Chemistry looks like it will be challenging but interesting.

I don't have a lot to say about the other classes here. Honestly, I'm tired today. One thing I am beginning to realize relating to college is that I am far more comptent and "abled" than I had previously thought. I also wonder at times whether I would be classified as having Asperger's if I'd had the advantage of a less traumatic and disruptive life. The majority of issues seem to relate more to anxiety and feeling intimidated by people and situations than typical spectrumite problems. Which isn't to say that there aren't issues which are spectrum related, but on reflection, it seems to me that normal people have a lot of social issues that I do not have.

Example- who said what about who at the baby shower? Who will have what place at Franny's wedding? Whose turn it is to invite Jan and Fred over to dinner, and are they taking advantage of us by feeding us spaghetti every time we dine at their house whereas we feed them better food? These are things that really do not not affect me; I waste no time at all worrying about them, but I have observed them as issues for other people with active social lives. More: June calls me every day when I am cleaning! What can I do? Summer wants to do something this weekend, but I don't want to...but I should. I want to have a party, but the two people I like best hate each other!

As I age, I find that my children are more and more precious to me, that really, children are a primary main purpose in life, unless we have none, in which case we devise other sorts of children (intellectual, surrogates, mentees, pets, etc). Lacking something of this nature, or motivation towards this end, people degenerate. They focus too strongly (yes, an aspie said this!) on some area of their life. Life becomes "all about me" (yes, I've heard people say this). They become addicted to drugs, work, drink, or a cause. They can be productive, sure...but I don't think they're filling their true purpose in life.

And don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying everyone needs to procreate physically. What I mean is that as humans, the needs to parent *something* is a central and essential component of our makeup. I'm also not saying that having a partner is unimportant, but I am beginning to feel that the primary purpose in having a partner, after the initial exhiliration has subsided a bit, is to have a partner for the purpose of parenting that child, idea, or mission. Similarly, on observation, I think the strongest partnerships are those which have a strong purpose, which may be why celebrities break up so frequently if their life is centered on self and hedonism.

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't thought through all the angles yet.

Birds seen today:

Pileated woodpecker, female
Flicker
A big flock of Bohemian waxwings, flying in to feed on Sorbus (Mountain ash).
Pine Siskins
House finches
female Downy woodpecker (so cute!!)
Black capped chickadees
Chestnut backed chickadees

====================================
I confess a weakness for the woodpeckers, especially flickers. Eagles are cool, but after seeing the you-tube video of a golden eagle ripping helpless, bleating baby goats off the side of a cliff face, to their deaths, I just don't feel quite the same about them any more. Yes, I do realize that this isn't very objective of me.

Wow, what a year 2008 was! Let's hope 2009 will be a little easier. I did well enough in my fall semester and now have Systematic Botany (among other courses) for the Spring semester.

Work, life

I've had a surprising array of jobs, none of which I would characterize as good in the sense of having high long term prospects, and most of which I didn't relish all that much. I never even got paid for the hardest work I ever did...for my parents, and my body bears the memories and pains of that work to this day. I've always tried to work hard, though...not because I was afraid not to, but because I needed to work hard in order to feel that I was earning my pay, for my own self esteem, and because I've had it with men telling me I couldn't work hard by virtue of my sex. Especially because of that, I frequently worked harder. And no matter how dirty the work was, how low paying, how bad the work conditions or the coworkers, I've always felt that dignity isn't defined by one's circumstances, you have to draw it from within, not depend upon other people to dictate your value to you. No.

Some people don't like that. They want a person to grovel, to act stupid even if they're not, to grin idiotically and enthusiastically when told the toilets need to be cleaned, even if they ultimately don't clean the toilet. I was the type to take the toilet cleaning orders stoically and then go do it, and do it well, but because I didn't grin all over myself in the process, the happy faced do-nothings tended to get preference. It's always been this way. It doesn't surprise me anymore, but it still makes me angry at times, the injustice of it. It isn't about work, it's about the person in authority wanting gratuitous ego stroking, needing to know that nothing is too much to ask, you'll do it gladly.... My loyalty is never of that sort. When I love someone, something, someplace (and places frequently rate high on my list of loves- I get very attached to place), I'm like a stone. If it rains on me, I'm wet. Snow, I'm covered and cold. Ice, sheeted and dripping with it. Sun, hot and dry. I might bitch and whine, but I'm *there* in my heart. It takes an awful lot of upheaval to change that, and once changed, I tend to stay changed, too. Can you see what I mean; the surface may change from day to day but the essence remains the same and fairly constant.

There was the chicken factory. Egads, what an awful job. The place reeked so badly that it could be smelled from a mile or two away. Most of the workers didn't speak English. Most of them got carpal tunnel eventually, it was just a matter of time, and they knew it. They knew, too, that they'd be fired if they got injured or if they so much as hinted at symptoms of carpal tunnel, so they had to keep quiet about it. All I did, for 8 hours a day straight, was to turn boneless, skinless chicken breasts over, shiny side up in little trays passing me on a conveyor belt. Any with bloody bruises or bad spots larger than a quarter had to be pulled. I was already a vegetarian, but that job caused me to lose my appetite for chicken for years.

The Southern Steel factory, home to the job I hated most. First they had me trim the ragged edges off of steel racks for freezers and refrigerators. That was OK and they were impressed with my productivity. I liked it. Then they had me lift much larger racks off hooks, after being galvanized, in groups, and pack them into huge crates. I was strong, and I tried my absolute best, but just was not physically large enough, didn't have the brawn, to do the task well. Next, the worst: standing next to a conveyor chain of enameled racks on their way to some other destination. My only duty, for 8 hours per day, was to ensure that all the racks were hanging correctly on the chain. 98% of them were. There were two people on this task, and we sometimes had to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a crooked hanging rack. We'd race to it, all excited over finally having something to *do*. I thought I would die of boredom or become hypnotized by the sight of endless racks going by....

Housekeeper and maid to wealthy, eldery cattle ranchers in west Texas who owned tens of thousands of acres. I lived in a little trailer near their house, cooked their breakfast, made their beds, cleaned their house, made their lunch and dinner, did the dishes, dusted and polished their furniture. I didn't mind the meniality of the work, or the low pay ($400.00 per month), but I did mind, quietly, privately, their bigotry and old fashioned ideas of what I should like or not like, do or not do, believe, eat, act, and so on. They found my vegetarianism very offensive. They knew when they hired me that I observed a 7th day sabbath, but then expected me to work on Saturday beyond cooking and serving their meals, which I considered necessary. They agreed, when they hired me, to allow me to keep a single goat in a pen on their vast acreage, but once I was hired, changed their minds, said that "Goats aren't worth two hoots in glory!", and so even as I helped care for their livestock, their pets, I couldn't have a single animal of my own. My husband was supposed to milk the cows, but he didn't know how, had no farm sense. I did, but they wouldn't let me at first, said women shouldn't milk animals. Their grandson persuaded them otherwise, said he preferred the fresh milk to storebought, so they decided to let me milk long enough to teach my husband (a truly unteachable man) how to milk the cows. Eventually they fired me, saying that we were "too different".

Then there was the job as a CSS, Community Support Specialist. This was a fancy name for a job working with developmentally disabled children and adults. I viewed them as my clients. We were told to refer to them as "consumers", a term which some of the clients found very offensive. One teen with cerebral palsy told me that it made him feel as though he were regarded as a parasite on society, consuming. I avoided the term whenever possible, but quickly found that the other workers spent most of their time babysitting the clients rather than trying to help them achieve the goals which had been set in the plans, which were enclosed in notebooks. The intelligent clients asked to read their notebook after each worker was finished with it for the day. This was wise, for the comments were frequently condescending and belittling, much like the worker's attitude toward the clients. I got into trouble for not adopting this attitude, for viewing all the clients, even the most disabled, as my equals. When I disclosed my diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, they gave my clients with autism spectrum disorders to other workers, and gave me the clients I was afraid of. These were probably harmless, but they were grown men and I was to sit alone with them in their apartments for an hour or two at a time, a situation I felt distinctly uncomfortable with. My hours were cut to a negligible amount. The message was clear; I quit.

I won't reiterate my gripes with my current job because you can read them in detail from the time I got hired. I've given up complaining about it. We're disposable, there's no reason to treat us well or even to follow the law in regard to employee rights, because there is always an endless supply of people desperate for a job, particularly in today's economy. Injustice is everywhere, but I never seem to reach a place where I can accept it. I'm not sure if that's a failing on my part or not.

A thought has occurred to me. My youngest child prefers toys that are black and white, or which have high color contrast. He also likes yellow. Several of my other kids have gone through a red phase, where they really liked red toys, but not Charlie. He occasionally likes other toys that have a very light colored background (such as white) with other darker colors as the pattern. Again, this could be more about light-dark contrast than the colors.

I think there is a chance he could be colorblind, not in the sense of seeing the world in shades of gray (achromatopsia) which is very rare, but the much more common red-green color blindness. Red-green color blindness runs in my family- my dad has it. I always wondered why he wore such awful clothing combinations and why he didn't appreciate my art, and why he had us tell him when the traffic lights turned green. As an adult, it makes a lot more sense.

Suggested informal tests for color blindness in small children include presenting the child (usually a boy, since it is much more common in boys) with a collection of red or green objects, for example, a bucket of red crayons with only one or two green ones, and see if he will pick out the different colored one.

Anyway, people who are colorblind can typically see yellow, orange, black, white, and pale blue normally. This would explain why he likes black/white objects (such as his penguin and orca whales) and yellow toys (ducks) and also why, at the swimming pool, he always picks up the yellow duck first even though there's also a blue one. He likes Elmo (red), but Elmo talks, and he tends to prefer any toy which talks or makes music. Hmm.

Woot! Got an A in psychology. OK, so I shouldn't be surprised. I liked psychology and in my life experience, I've had plenty of case studies to observe (not excluding, of course, myself). Heh. So, on to new conquests: more Algebra, English, and either Biology or Chemistry. The latter will both require labs, which means I probably can't do them wholly online. I also wanted Ethics, but after seeing just how accelerated those summer courses really are, I'll save it for then. I think I had probably better start getting the science and math prerequisites out of the way.

The 5 year old is finally able to walk again. He can't run yet, but since he's such a little hellion, I don't especially mind. I'll be chasing him down within a week...

Picked 2-3 eggplants and a few ripe tomatoes. I really need to start applying my attentions to the problem of what I intend to do with the tomatoes. Forty plant's worth of fruit is not going to fit in the freezer.

I've been building a rock wall across the front yard. Paul brings home rocks every so often and I use them up. Wish I were better at it (dry stone masonry is an art form) but some things just aren't perfect the first go around. I can't say exactly what the purpose of the wall is. It isn't going to be high enough to function as a privacy screen. It probably won't keep Charlie in the yard, he'll just run through the opening where a gate should be (have no idea how to affix a gate to a stone wall). I think the idea is to provide a visual boundary that is reasonably aesthetic. There are a lot of gaps (I don't cut or shape the rocks) in the wall, and the plan is to fill these with sedums, phlox, and various xeric rock loving species.

Lastly, between now and the onset of the fall quarter, I intend (note the lack of commitment there) to work ahead in the algebra book so as to have a head start.

Another thing: no matter how well I do (any given task or goal), I always have this nagging sensation that I should be doing better. People always think I'm such a bitch...I don't think this is true, it's just that I take things so *seriously* and especially when I feel passionately about something. Or, it's like, instead of an angel or devil perched on my shoulder (flashback to kiddie cartoons), I've got this awful nitpicky critical thing hounding me, reminding me of all my failings and of every embarrassing thing I've said or done. And yet, the alternative would be mediocrity, so...

I am so disillusioned and depressed with the community I live in. These people are, to put it crudely, a bunch of dumbfucks. They have very little concept of human rights, moral behavior, basic biology or health...I could rant for a long time. The educational system sucks, particularly for older children (the elementary grades are actually OK, no real complaints there). The laws in this state regarding the human value of its taxpayers are atrocious. The land is high priced, and for what? To live in an area full of ignorant, inbred yokels and barely make ends meet because decent jobs can't be found?

I've raised my kids hoping that they'd be open minded and accepting of other's differences. I've tried to expose them to experiences I thought were worthwhile. What does this community give me in return? My kids come home with words like "fag" and "nigger" and the idea that interesting activities are "gay" as are decent clothing (which I buy for them, but they will not wear, because they want to look like dumb rednecks, their peers), and obsessions with video games instead of their former interests in birds, cooking, and nature. They still like to fish, because fishing is socially acceptable. I don't want to waste my life raising dummies who go out and get drunk every night and knock up crackhead bimbos who smoke and continue to get wasted even after they're preggers. This community is toxic, and it's making my children sick.

I want them to have some kind of a chance at life, not a lifelong struggle with half a pickled brain....or a job in a lumber mill...or even settling down to be a respectable citizen of this trashy area. I simply cannot give them what they need here.

Well, we went to Manito Park in Spokane a few days ago. I learned quite a bit about which plants I do not want to grow, others that I wouldn't have considered before but am now interested in, and new applications for plants I've had all along. Lots of fuel for ideas there. The kids loved it and were reluctant to go. It's funny how most garden catalogs provide insufficient information about the plants they offer. For example, they'll show you the bloom, but not the leaves or the entire plant, so you've got no idea what shape the plant will be except for the written description, what the leaves will look like when the plant's not in bloom, and other fairly necessary info. Leaves are very important, because you have to live with them through the entire growing season. Winter interest is another neglected area, but I suppose people don't care about their gardens in the winter?

I just watched a really good movie- Love in the Time of Cholera. I don't care as much about the real life identity of actors as I do about their actual performance in a given film, so I'm not going to look them up. Anyway, even more than Perfume, this is precisely my sort of movie. I strongly related to it. Aside from my subjective feelings about the film, one thing I really noticed and appreciated was the extremely skilled transition in age of the two main characters. I still am not quite sure if the same two actors were used throughout. I think there were two actors for each role, but I'm not 100% sure, and like I said, the transition was done so well that I'd have to watch it a couple more times to figure out where they switched. One of the things that the film brought out, and which I'd like to emphasize, is this: love is not a moral issue.

This brings me to a question: is it ever possible for a feeling to be a moral issue? I'm not sure of the answer yet. I think that some feelings are definitely unhelpful or inappropriate to the situation or dangerous or debilitating, but I can't think of an instance in which it would be immoral to feel a particular way. If you can, then let me know.

I guess I'm not the one to ask about morality anyway, because my standards on this aren't based on religion or a books or laws, etc etc. To my way of thinking, the standard of appropriate individual and social behavior is based upon its sustainability. If an action is truly sustainable over the long term, chances are that's it's a safe bet. If not, better rethink things. I really hate the way that people just obediently follow along and mindlessly let other people tell them what is or isn't right or wrong, but honestly, I think that for some, this is necessary. Some people really *need* the consolation and security or having a lifelong authority figure, such a deity, to tell them what to do in every facet of their lives.

Mmmmm. I am munching on a cinnamon stick as I write this, and I like the color of it. Someday I still want to build a paper or straw bale house and plaster it so it has an adobe type appearance. The color of this cinnamon stick would be really nice for such a house.

Also, I'm thinking of gardens. Specifically, I want to make a perennial bed where something will be in bloom from earliest spring until the fall, preferably with winter interest as well. Actually, it doesn't have to be in bloom all the time, but should have something interesting at every time in the year. So far, I have the following succession penciled in (this is the sort of thing I think about and visualize when they think I'm zoned out and brain dead at work):

scilla or snowdrops or anemone blanda...or all three
species tulips, crocuses, and tiny early species daffodils
hyacinth, tulips (Darwin), possibly more daffodils
Thalia narcissus, late tulips (such as parrot types)?
peonies (to hide the bulb's foliage as it dies back), maybe hosta
alliums
roses
daylilies, eremurus?
oriental lilies


and that's as far as I've gotten.

Oh, please. I am 35+ years old; way too old to be letting petty stuff like a coworker get to me. This crap is for teeny boppers and drama queens. I need to grow up and just start ignoring it or make it into a joke or something. Life's too damned short for this.

On the flip side, the sad reality is that we're not *allowed* to have problems at work. We're just expected to suck it up and pretend life's OK even if a co worker is making us absolutely miserable. The sad part of that is that most of these problems, if dealt with early on, wouldn't balloon out of control, but left unattended like that, they fester. And then of course, both parties get into trouble, regardless of who the aggressor was, except if the aggressor was a manager. If that's the case, you're really and truly screwed and nothing can save you, because managers can do no wrong when it comes to employee interrelations.

I am so incredibly tired. Work has been chaotic, unrelenting, and very demanding both in pace and volume of business. It seems to me that there are never enough box boys to go around, and that they don't respond quickly enough or at all, but I suppose that it's been hard on them, too. Getting anything at all to eat in time to eat it on one's break is next to impossible. The lines...the lines....by the time you get to buy the item, there's no break left to eat it in, so why bother? I'm not going to bother griping about it, too damned tired.

Oh- my White's boots are done. I am SO happy to have them back! I notice however, that wearing them causes a different walking style, imposed by the stiffness of the boot around the very supportive ankle. At any rate, my hips won't be hurting me so badly after work. Now it's my shoulder, from hefting people's poison (huge cases of beer and pop) all day long. Ah well. Life gets us one way or another. I am so happy to get the boots back; I could almost send them a thank you card. At some point, I think I should get a second pair in case something like this happens again. I don't want to be without them again.

My five year old hurt his foot. He still isn't putting any weight on it. The X rays show no broken bones though, so I suppose we'll give it another day or two. Apparently he was climbing an extension ladder at his dad's house and the upper part of the ladder slid down, crushing his foot between two rungs. Thankfully he was only about three feet off the ground when it happened. It's seems really strange for him to be so well behaved for a change. Of course, it is only because he is immobilized... ;-)

What else. Ah. The baby (age 2.5) said "helmet". We were concerned about his vocabulary??? I'm not worried any longer. He's obviously bright and going to catch up in his speech quite quickly.